Sermon and Worship Resources

Synonyms: touch, feel, sense of touch, tactile sense, tactility, contact, using one's hands, sensation, sense, suspicion, sneaking suspicion, notion, inkling, hunch, fancy, apprehension, presentiment, premonition, foreboding, love, care, affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, warmness, emotion, sentiment, emotional state, compassion, sympathy, empathy, fellow feeling, understanding, concern, solicitude, solicitousness, tender-heartedness, brotherly love, sensibilities, sensitivities, self-esteem, ego, pride, opinion, belief, view, impression, intuition, instinct, estimation, guess, theory, hypothesis, thought, way of thinking, point of view, atmosphere, ambience, aura, air, mood, climate, character, overtone, undertone, tenor, spirit, quality, flavour, colour, aptitude, knack, flair, bent, talent, gift, skill, art, trick, faculty, ability, propensity, inclination, sensitive, warm, warm-hearted, tender, tender-hearted, caring, soft-hearted, sympathetic, compassionate, empathetic, responsive, receptive, intuitive, thoughtful

Antonyms: bad feeling, acrimony, animosity, animus, antagonism, antipathy, aversion, bitterness, detestation, disgust, dislike, disrelish, enmity, friction, grievances, grudges, hatred, hostility, loathing, malevolence, malice

Showing 1351 to 1375 of 2275 results

1351. It’s About God

John 3:14-21

Sermon

David T. Ball

... entirely new level of importance and significance for us. Effusive, exciting sharing about the good news of the Christian story — that’s what we have here. And the best part: God did all of this for us; God did all of this for us. Such clear acts demonstrating the quality and the extent of God’s love for us. This is the excitement we need to feel, so much that we can hardly sit still, when we read or hear that familiar phrase, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone ...

1352. A Level Playing Field for God

Isaiah 40:1-11

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... kinds of mountains do the poor people in our community have to climb, simply to get enough to eat or a place to sleep? Bring down that mountain! What deep valleys must be traversed by people in our community who are illiterate or who do not have access to quality public education? Fill in that ditch! Prepare the way of the Lord! I believe, sisters and brothers, that God's way is made easier when we live the lives that God would have us live! God's presence comes closer as you and I prayerfully practice that ...

1353. It’s Good to Know Who Is Calling

1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)

Sermon

Schuyler Rhodes

... to slow down enough so that we can actually hear God's voice. My not so secret desire is that we will step out of this world's hyper achievement mode long enough to tell a joke, or listen to a child's story. My yearning is for not just quality, but quantity. Time for us to love, to play, and to listen. Then when we hear the voice, we'll have someone to go to, as Samuel did, to test that voice. And then we will know who it is that's calling. It is good to know who's ...

1354. Would You Be a Saint?

Matthew 23:1-39

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... know there are true saints in our midst this morning. Can’t you feel their presence? We have but to recognize and celebrate them. And this is our problem. The problem with real “saints” is that they are slippery. Jesus identified the revealing qualities of a true “saint” in today’s text. They don’t proudly peacock their achievements. They do not wear “broad phylacteries” or “long fringes.” They do not insist upon the best, recognition of their deeds, or need special placement in the ...

1355. MegaGrace

Acts 4:32-35

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... began and ended with commendations of "grace." In Paul's letter to the Romans, his most mature theological work, his words on grace shattered all the old illusions of earned acceptance in which his Pharisaic life had schooled him. Acknowledging the unmanageable, unmerited quality of God's grace is one thing - learning to live with trust in its continued presence is quite another. In his second letter to the Corinthian Church, Paul admitted he had prayed three times for God to remove "a thorn in his flesh ...

1356. A Postmodern Coat of Crayola Colors

Mark 4:35-41

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... to a stranger. Yellow - Acceptance of someone who sees things differently. Blue - Kindness in the face of rude Pink - Generosity toward someone less fortunate. The new Crayola crayons can suggest to us the presence of still other color-coded qualities we need to cultivate. Historical theologian David F. Wells illustrates how different cultures order and formulate information by citing how "English-speaking people divide the rainbow into six colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet (some add indigo ...

1357. The Job Description of a Leader

2 Samuel 23:1-7

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... is an acquired talent, every Christian must come to terms with it. A biblical style of leadership and language of leadership must become endemic in the church. In the Old Testament and Gospel lessons for this week both David and Jesus illustrate the mysterious qualities and unique characteristics God has chosen to hold up as necessary for those who would lead the people of God on their life journeys of faith. The surprising nature of their faith, their lives, and their words combine to write what might be ...

1358. The Ultimate Athlete

Ephesians 6:10-20

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... updated to describe the function of an imposing offensive line. Like a shield the front line does not destroy the opponent completely, but it does give the quarterback the opportunity to perform to the best of his ability. The "sword" of the Spirit can lose its decapitating qualities by being seen as a "tool of the trade." For a first century military man the tool of choice was the sword. But for the twentieth-century athlete the tool to get the job done may be a bat, a ball, or a hockey stick. Expertise in ...

1359. The First Christmas Card

Philippians 4:4-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... see you again, and your hearts will be full of joy, and that joy no one shall take from you."Or, as Paul wrote to the church at Colossae, "Nor let any one cheat you of your joy in Christ" (Phillips). Taking these five qualities to heart might produce some rather unexpected Christmas greeting cards. In a recent essay on the"hard" gospel, William Willimon suggests that John the Baptist make his way out of scripture and onto Christmas cards."Imagine," Willimon says, "putting John the Baptist on a Christmas ...

1360. Aged to Perfection - The Third Age

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and over again in her book Nobody Ever Died of Old Age (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972). The human body should last up to 120-140 years, which seems to be the body's built-in biological barrier. Our lives are now shortened or compromised in quality by preventable, environmental/lifestyle diseases - cancer (dioxins), cholesterol, refusing to wear seat-belts, alcohol, tobacco, etc. Who was it who first said, "If I had known I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself? No one is ever ...

1361. Unum Humanum

John 17:20-26

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... beginning to see that we must "think globally and act locally." This week's Gospel text presents Jesus' words of power and comfort, "I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one" (John 17:23). But oneness has never been a quality the church has had much of an opportunity to celebrate. In the church's first few centuries it was so concerned about establishing a creed of theological orthodoxy that it saw heresy and treachery everywhere. Conversely, since the time of the Reformation, the church ...

1362. The Compleat Christian

Romans 5:1-5

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... faith through grace, must involve our head, hands, heart and feet. Paul called for this same totality of involvement, this integrated compleatness when he spoke of the need to develop hope, suffering, endurance and character. Consider how each of these qualities, and each part of the body, can work together for faithfulness. Issues which assault our head, our understanding, test the mettle of our character. Questions that pierce our heart penetrate to the very roots of our reasons for hopefulness. Putting ...

1363. Let's Give Jesus a Hand

Galatians 6:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... We must invoke the maxim of Ignatius of Loyola: Pray as if everything depended on God; act as if everything depended on you. In this week's epistle, Paul emphasizes to the Galatian community that to a large extent, they determine their own quality of life. Sowing to their "own flesh" leads to a harvest of corruption. Does our society, steeped in individualism, shallow consumerism and militarism, and now sitting on a harvest of poverty, pollution and decaying plutonium, really need that fact pointed out to ...

1364. Settle for an F

Hebrews 13:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... that the Hebrews must find stability in their fidelity to the One God. Individual, personal relationships are as dynamic as were those historical movements across the map of Israel. Marriage - even in its post-fall form - retains all the dynamic qualities of its original Creator. Thus it is because it is so changeable and dynamic, not because it is the crystallized casting of an "institution," that marriage depends on fidelity, on faithfulness, to maintain its equilibrium. God made covenants with Israel ...

1365. Toys R Us. NOT!

Ephesians 1:11-23

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the street talking on their cellular phones. If they actually run into the person they are talking to they probably couldn't reprogram themselves to speak in the flesh. The Metal People have forgotten that these machines are only tools for enhancing our quality of life. They get stuck in the Metal Era, and they abandon all the things that are nurturing and soft and comforting and real: children, pets, conversation." (As quoted in Jane O'Reilly, "Faxed to the Max," Lears 5 [April 1992], 58.) These "metal ...

1366. O Holy Nightmare

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... rage that accompanies all of these? Caught up in a consumer Christmas, we can easily find that instead of preparing to sing "O Holy Night," we find ourselves living out one "holy nightmare." One of the most obvious signs of the nightmarish quality the secular season has taken on is its interminable length. If you really want to start preaching about "Advent" to consumers, you need to start on the day after Halloween - for like all nightmares, "consumer Christmas" seemingly goes on forever without getting ...

1367. The Hand, the Lamb and the Dove

John 3:1-17

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , A Big Enough God [New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1995], 15-16). For many of us, however, words will always fail to capture the truth of the Trinity. A lucky few may have other, more dramatic ways in which they are capable of capturing the essential qualities of a Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here is another attempt at understanding the Trinity that you might wish to use with your people. Remember playing with mercury when you were in grade school? Mercury is an unusual metal because it remains in liquid form ...

1368. Parable Power

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... the Parents Who Don't Have a Clue. The Parable of the Empty Cupboard and the Overflowing "Bills To Pay" Slot. Don't worry if these, or the particular parable stories you experienced this week, didn't seem to have any grand significance, any definitive "gospel" quality to them, as you lived through them. The power of a parable is partly its ability to stand up to scrutiny and self-examination at a later time and there to reveal its true meaning, its gospel heart. Jesus spoke in parables to the crowds. Only ...

1369. The Monster Under Megan's Bed

John 6:1-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... resources, all the natural diversity, all the natural beauty of our God-created planet Earth, and especially TurtleIsland (what the natives called North America). Belatedly, boomers and boosters have begun to worry about the condition of this planet and the physical quality of the future we are leaving our children. But looking around at the pollution, the devastation, the decimation we have wrought, our generations tend to be like Andrew. When solutions or sacrifices are raised, we wring our hands and moan ...

1370. Close the Loopholes

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... had begun. Have you closed your loopholes of anger with stitches of love and forgiveness? Are you keeping the body's fabric of faith intact? Loophole #3 Greed: Consumer culture programs us to believe that "more" is always "better." Our inability to distinguish quality of life from the quantity of things filling our lives has earned us the label of a greedy, grasping people. We guzzle the raw material this world provides and then throw away as "worthless" trash more goods than most small countries can even ...

1371. Wanted: A Lasting Marriage. Only Good Chemists, Bad mathematicians, Expert Soul-O-Flexors Need Apply

Mark 10:2-16

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Allen Fay recalls that "A patient once said to me, 'Marriage is a 50/50 proposition, isn't it?' I replied, "No, marriage is a 60/60 proposition. Each person has to do a little more than what he thinks his share is'" (PQR: Prescription for a Quality Relationship [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988], 4). Lasting marriages are not 50/50, tit-for-tat propositions. In another survey of 351 couples married for over 15 years, the ones who were happiest claimed that "You have to be willing to put in more than you ...

1372. The Widow's Might

Mark 12:38-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... appeal to the particular set of standards that motivate different types of candy buyers. Some people would never dream of purchasing anything but an "old standard" a Milky Way, a Hershey Bar, M&Ms. For others, the most important thing is quantity, not quality. For them, there is no possibility of getting too much of a good thing. Those who see eating sweets as strictly a "special" indulgence purchase their goodies as part of their "entertainment package." For children, the standard of taste is replaced by ...

1373. The Longest Journey Is the Shortest Distance

Acts 17:22-31

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... shortest distance the journey around and within. A big reason God is not more real is that we look only at remote and distant places and not AROUND and WITHIN. Ever notice how the places that are celebrated as perfectly gifted with the qualities that raise consciousness, enlighten the mind, bring peace to the soul are located about as far away from where you are as possible? Popular spiritualities routinely tout the mountains of Tibet, the temples of India, the deserts of New Mexico as the best locations ...

1374. Holy Spirit Holes

Acts 2:1-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... flame of fire to ignite? Instead of experiencing doves and flames swooping out from "Holy Spirit holes," are the well-insulated ceilings of our churches, like our souls, closed to any surprise visitations from above? Do you trust the wind? It is the wind-like quality of the Spirit that surprises us, that takes us where we don't want to go, that is unpredictable, that drives us toward stillness, that drives us toward wholeness, that drives us toward shelter and safety. Are there any Holy Spirit holes open in ...

1375. A Bill of Rights

Matthew 15:(10-20) 21-28

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... boy, the excuses some of you can come up with for doing so"(29)! Her book argues that society must get back to the 3 C's: Character, Courage and Conscience. She begins her book with this declaration: "The path to solid, supportive, healthy relationships, self-respect and a quality life starts with the usually painful decision to do the right thing. This is the book to get you on that path and to keep you focused on those goals" (2). As good as Schlessinger's book is, it isn't the book to do that. The Bible ...

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